Unite leadership rivals ran simultaneous events on Thursday evening – but one stood out
Howard Beckett and Steve Turner, the two assistant general secretaries of giant union Unite who are both standing to become the union’s next leader, both ran online events on Thursday evening. Both events started at 7pm – and both were broadcast via streaming service Periscope – but the results were very different.
Turner’s event addressed the important GKN industrial dispute, with West Midlands workers fighting to prevent the offshoring of their jobs – and also featured veteran right-wing Labour MP Jack Dromey, who this week came out in a show of support for Turner’s Unite bid, as well as well-known journalist Kevin Maguire. But despite the importance of the topic, an hour after the broadcast started, the event had been viewed only a thousand times – and two hours later still, only 1,900:
By contrast, after the first hour Beckett’s programme, on the topic of employers’ ‘fire and rehire’ tactics, had been viewed seven thousand times – and two hours further on, by 13,000:
Beckett’s event was streamed on two separate ‘RTMP’ feeds, yet both outstripped the Turner event – and the total just a shade under seven times higher.
An hour further on, four hours from the start of each broadcast, Turner’s event had added only a hundred viewers – while Beckett’s had a further thousand – ten times higher.
The difference in the relative draw of the two candidates – who are also radically different in their level of confrontation with Labour’s right-wing leadership and lack of opposition, as well as hands-on approach to industrial disputes – is clear. And it’s not the first time.
Skwawkbox is supporting Howard Beckett for the Unite leadership.
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